In both Calgary and Edmonton, people lament the lack of a centralized gay neighborhood like what Toronto has. However, is Toronto’s gay village becoming a victim of our struggles and successes in gaining acceptance? On a recent visit to Canada’s largest city I wondered if the Church Wellesley neighborhood would survive, and if Albertans could benefit from having a village - or at least better support in our cities out west.
These islands of tolerance and diversity were fostered in the years when you couldn’t be openly gay. This attitude is something Dean Odorico of Woody’s Bar on Church Street remembers from his youth in Toronto. “When I was young, you went to a gay bar because you weren’t welcome in other places”. Ed Velasquez, Manager of Priape in Toronto added: “the village was a safe haven…that’s where gay men went because there was power in numbers”. That feeling of “a safe haven” is still there on Church Street. As I walked around, even on a cool October months after Pride, I felt I could make a pass at 90% of the men with no problem. It’s rare you get the same level of comfort in Alberta.
Ryan Tartaglio, assistant manager of Priape, agrees. A native Calgarian, Ryan moved to Toronto 4 years ago. He left because he didn’t feel as safe – as illustrated by an incident prior to his departure. “I was walking downtown late at night. Some guys approached me and my boyfriend and we had to throw ourselves into oncoming traffic just to get away from them.” Tartaglio felt Calgary lacked a safe spot where all the businesses, organizations, and like-minded queer citizens could congregate, so meeting people and being openly gay while retaining a degree of safety was not possible.
Safety and acceptance does come easier in larger cities with a centralized gay village, yet in the past 5-10 years, our society on the whole has become more progressive and accepting of gay men and lesbians. Is there still that need for the ghetto? What is the gay or lesbian resident of Toronto doing today?
They are assimilating and are being accepted as part of the greater community. As well, gay culture is transitioning, according to Velasquez. “We’re redefining what it means to be gay...all those years previous we fought for gay rights and equality. Now we’re at a point where we have it. What do you do when you don’t have to fight as hard? There’s nothing that is really binding people – before there were issues of getting accepted, or wanting to find other people like yourself…so you went to the village. Now we have the rights, there isn’t the need for that backup. The empowerment is happening much earlier. We’re seeing teenagers coming out more frequently, because there’s more people on television (showing) how normal it is in any community.” Gay as normal is not just happening in Toronto. Much has been made of the gay village’s retreat from their glory days in cities across North America. Furthermore, there is the impact of the internet. You can create your own global village with accepting gay and lesbian friends from around the world, to help you realize you are not alone - you can live out a normal, average life.
And “normal” to the gay community increasingly means achieving the dream of meeting the man or woman of your dreams, and then moving out to white picket fence suburbia and having 2.4 cats/dogs (or in some cases, kids). A gay village is usually set in an urban surrounding, and some may feel you can’t have your suburban dream in the middle of a city.
There’s also the attitude attached to being in the village, which, according to Toronto city Councilor Kyle Rae, can be a turn-off. “There is a relentlessness to the gay culture. I meet people who say ‘I just can’t take it anymore’. It’s the constant sexual hype and games. The bitchy repartee…some people grow out of that, some people don’t.” Being in the village 24/7 strengthens the cliques within the community – something the next generation, represented by Tartaglio, still sees. What do you do if you grow out of the bitchiness, and the need to only hang around bears/dykes on bikes/drag queens / leathermen / twinkies / lipstick lesbians etc? You’ll feel the need to escape from a neighbourhood perpetuating these cliques.
Escape is what’s happening. Much like ethnic communities where the first generation lived in their own ghettos only to see the next generation freely disperse throughout the city, the same is happening to gay men and lesbians in Toronto. “I think a lot of gay men have figured out that segregation isn’t really helping out our cause” said Tartaglio. Councilor Rae sees it as an attitudinal change. “Gays and Lesbians are now able to live just about anywhere. Church & Wellesley used to be a ghetto, now it’s a village. It used to be a safe place. We no longer need that. I now see couples walking up Yonge Street, I see them in Parkdale, Riverdale, Leslieville…there are gay couples buying property…our culture has radically changed from that of ten years ago.”
Besides the escape to the ‘burbs, another worry an established gay village faces is gentrification. Historically, the neighborhood surrounding Church and Wellesley had affordable low income housing; it was an area no one else wanted. Members of our community moved in and fixed up the living spaces. When Maple Leaf Gardens shut down in the late 1990s, businesses catering to the Gardens and its clientele closed up as well. The result was more space on the street for Gay businesses who completed the clean-up of the neighborhood on the commercial side. In turn, this made the area a desirable place to live…and suddenly residential and commercial rents went skywards.
Toronto’s gay village success then becomes a bit of a liability. On the residential side, the city has done what it could to keep some rental housing in the neighborhood, said Rae. “What we’ve been able to do is add more housing to the neighborhood without undermining the rental stock. Most of the new condos are on what used to be surface parking lots or on commercial properties. There hasn’t been any loss of rentals. We’ve got more gay and lesbian couples moving into home ownership in condos.” Unfortunately, under the Mike Harris provincial government, rules were changed to allow for vacancy de-control. City council repeatedly asked the province to return to rent control, but even under the Liberals, they’ve not budged.
Then there are the changes this successful neighborhood has on commercial space. This is another frustration for city council in Toronto. “In my opinion,” said Rae, “part of the problem is that having a liquor license is almost equivalent to having a printing press for money. There is a perception in the mind of property owners of Church Street retail properties that they can maximize their rents by leveraging licensed establishments onto Church Street…the rents are becoming so jacked up because of the expectation of being able to make money hand over fist with a liquor license.” Rae worries because the rents in the neighborhood are going so high they are driving out the grocers, the coffee shops, the funky clothing stores who can’t pull in as much money but who helped give the area the feeling of a market street. This atmosphere cannot be maintained if the street only has bars.
However, there have been steps taken to solidify the atmosphere of the village so it’s recognized as a gay historic neighborhood. As Velasquez put it, “I think it’s very important we recognize our history so that now and in the future this will always be known as a landmark and the gay village. As a culture we have to find a way to house the people and the businesses that have created the identity of who we are.” Besides the rainbow flags, there is the Alexander Wood statue at the corner of Church and Alexander. There was also the establishment of the Church Wellesley Business Improvement Area. This organization took ten years to be established, but there is finally the feeling the BIA reflects the needs of the street, and therefore the needs of the residents who are depending on that commercial strip.
Now, before you accuse me of viewing the Toronto community with rose-coloured glasses, I’m aware they probably have infighting amongst themselves too. That being said, I suspect we don’t have to worry about the gay village fading away in Toronto. Yet I returned home and wondered what can we do here in Alberta for our own communities?
The question I posed to various Torontonians was whether Calgary needs to create a similar, physical gay community located in one spot. The consensus was that, while physical areas and buildings helped strengthen the ties, the real mortar helping to create a strong gay community in Toronto was the willingness of businesses and organizations to work together. The village is no longer as central to gay life – people are free to move out to other areas because of the evolution and acceptance of society as a whole.
Alberta is a province that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting gay rights, who threatened to try to opt out of gay marriage. Same-sex couples still may not feel safe walking hand-in-hand in our cities. We live in an economic situation where there is no low cost housing or commercial properties because they’ve been sold out to make more condos. Then in our own queer community, people play king of the hill, saying “you better obey what I say or you ain’t part of my group”. I don’t know, I see progress, yet we need more. A gay business association would be a start. We may not have a physical village, but damn it, why can’t we harness that mythic Alberta maverick ornery spirit and put Toronto to shame - instead of being known as Texas North? I don’t have the answers, and god knows I’ve done my share of being selfish at times – however, I do know in some ways we are falling behind. Maybe getting everyone holding hands and singing “Kumbaya” is a simplistic approach. But doesn’t it make a better solution than bitching and fighting, and wouldn’t it provide a better, lasting gay heritage for our own cities?
